racism in to kill a mockingbird

"If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?" (Lee, 259)

Harper Lee uses her novel 'To Kill a Mockingbird' to accentuate the catastrophic nature of racism. Some troubling individuals or groups of people have felt powerful by exercising their dominance over another group claiming they are worthier, stronger, and smarter. The problem of racism has often been associated with the history of the United States of America. Slavery has been abandoned long ago, but for years black people were considered to be of lower class, their capabilities were denied, and their dignity was completely diminished. It took American people hundreds of years to achieve the level of true democracy, when they can grasp the notion of equality between people, including acceptance of differences in gender, nationality, religion, culture, and what most matters in the book we read - race. Discrimination can be shown through the Maycomb community, the Tom Robinson trial, and Boo Radley. As Scout's cousin told her, "He's nothing but a n*****-lover!" (Lee, 94).

Segregation could be noticed not only in the Maycomb County, but in the whole Alabama state, and the rest of Southern USA. Black people could not 'mingle' with the whites and their children attended separate schools. Adults socialized at places where they wouldn't be noticed or bother the whites (ex. the black church in Maycomb). They each had their own territories, and assumed it was immoral for them to fuse together. They would go out of their way, saying things such as "You ain't got no business bringin' with chillum here - they got their church, we got our'n" (Lee, 136). The whites and blacks knew very little of each other, and that fear of not knowing became worse by imagining how bad the other side must be. This was also one of the problems that prevented racism to disappear. 'The Great...

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The novel is written from Scouts point of view. Her upbringing has been respectful to the African-Americans in her society and she shows this with her relationship with her maid, Calpurnia. Other children her age have adopted their parents' racial views, causing many of her problems. Scout is always defending Atticus but the racist comments do not stop. These comments show just how cruel children can be to other children. She feels the need to defend her father to Francis, her cousin. He was also taunting her with accusations: "At a safe distance he called, `He's nothin' but a nigger-lover'."
Racism was very common in Maycomb and any attempt to deviate from that way of thinking was shunned, and you may as well have branded on your forehead, `nigger-lover'. The main victim of racism in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird” is Tom Robinson, the black man who is accused of raping Mayella Ewell....

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